Beer Drinker Appreciation Society (BDAS)--OPEN (Page 4)

You could get kicked out of this group for that

Glad to hear that it's going well and you've liked (almost) everything you've tried!

Just an easy 45 minute run for me today.  I'm itching for some longer and a bit of quality work, but my coach is keeping it easy so I can hit my hard swims and get my bike back to where it was last year.  

Enjoying a nice glass of Tempranillo right now and getting ready to crash shortly. 

Yeah, she lost me at no alcohol.  LOL

Master's swim is nice.  Unfortunately, there are not other swimmers in my Noon group with which I can pace.  Other than the workouts and a occasional push by the coach, I'm on my own to make myself work hard.

I wouldn't call cycling a weakness or a strength.  When I'm trained up, I'm a decent cyclist.  I've used the Winter Cycling Plan as a jump start a couple times with good results.  If you have a trainer, it's a great plan. 

First swim this week - 2200 yds.  #5 workout for the month.  

I keep putting off the start to my winter cycling.  So, I've decided that I cannot watch any of the National Championship game without riding at least an hour on the trainer (likely while watching the game).  

We'll cut you a break on that one.  Sounds like a busy enough day to not inflict the CLP.

So glad the Lasik went well...I've heard it's a life-changer for people.  Now if they could just correct my need for reading glasses, that I was in denial about for a couple of years LOL.

I had an MRI on my lumbar spine last week and  met with my spine surgeon this morning.  We reviewed the results and I've got a bunch of stuff going on from L3 down to S1, but the worst stuff is a herniated disc at L4/L5 and a pretty big bulge at L5/S1, plus some disc degeneration from L3 down and some bone spurs here are there.  This has been going on for 5 years but we've seen additional issues show up since my last MRI back in April 2015.

So at least we know what we're up against.  I've tried all of the conservative treatments:  PT, rest, medication, injections, yoga, etc over the past several years and I've been somewhere between 90% (just some occasional soreness that could be managed) and 10% (like I am now, severe nerve pain).  I went through about two years from fall 2012 to fall 2014 where I had it really well managed and even ran about 700 miles in 2014, but it's been going downhill since.

There are two surgical options and my spine doc spent a long time talking to me today about them:  lumbar decompression, and then lumbar decompression with fusion.  He said I'm about smack in the middle between the two as to what he would recommend, and he could make an intelligent argument for either. 

After careful consideration (I've been researching this stuff for months...) we're going to go with the more conservative "nip and tuck" decompression vs the "rip the spine out" fusion surgery, even though long-term the fusion might provide the best results.  The recovery is considerably easier from the first one, and if it doesn't work we can always do the fusion down the road if I can tolerate (mentally) an additional surgery.  He really went back and forth on what to recommend, and eventually landed on what he would do himself (we have pretty similar age/activity/health profiles).

Doc thinks I should see significant relief from the nerve pain, but I'll still have some of the soreness that presents from the "bone on bone" problems.  Those are much more easily treated conservatively (and tolerated, for that matter, from my perspective).

Surgery is two-level disc decompression.  It's an outpatient surgery (hell, aren't they all now LOL?).  I'll come home the same day with reduced activity for the first month until all the surgery inflammation dies down, the sutures heal, etc.. I'm taking a couple of days off work but it shouldn't be an issue since I work from home.  I think I'll be able to cycle pretty quickly and swim pretty soon, too.  Running will probably depend on how well the surgery goes, but probably like 3 months and a slow build up.

Surgery is the 25th.  I'm actually looking forward to it.